UF engineering undergraduates take first place in design contest

November 13, 2006

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A team of University of Florida engineering students has won an international design competition for creating an automated process to print high-quality images on cubes of sticky notes for a division of BIC USA Inc.

The team won first place last month in the conference sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and hosted at the University of Michigan as part of the 2006 International Conference on Manufacturing Science and Engineering.

The team won the award for a project done as part of the Integrated Product and Process Design program, which pairs UF undergraduate engineering students with corporate and government sponsors seeking design or engineering innovations. The team’s partner was BIC Graphic USA, a division of BIC USA Inc. and leading supplier of custom-imprinted products for the promotional products industry.

“BIC was a great partner on this,” said Keith Stanfill, director of the Integrated Product and Process Design, or IPPD, program. “They treated the team like an extension of their own company, like professionals. We are thrilled and honored to have had this opportunity for such a close and fruitful collaboration with BIC.”

The UF students worked with BIC engineers to solve several technical hurdles involved in the project, which was to automate BIC’s process for printing high-quality, four-color images onto the sides of the stacks of sticky notes. The company sought to both speed up the process and reduce its cost.

“These students really helped us improve our manufacturing process, and I think they also learned a lot about real-world engineering,” said Jack Teague, president of BIC USA Inc. “We are glad to have participated in this program, and we are hopeful we helped to nurture the next generation of engineers.”

BIC USA Inc. is the world’s number-one manufacturer of ballpoint pens and a key player in stationery items, lighters and shavers.

Team CuBIC — so named for the shape of a stack of notes — consisted of six UF seniors majoring in several engineering disciplines. Students said they gained an appreciation for hands-on engineering.

“When we printed our first cube, we were excited,” said Laura Locke, an industrial engineering major and team member. “Not a lot can compare to building something and seeing it work.”

Team CuBIC took first place from among seven other finalists, splitting a $1,000 prize. Only two other teams from UF’s IPDD program have participated in the 11-year-old competition, in 2001 and 2005. Both also took first place.

“The results of this competition establish another reference point that shows us we have a high-quality program,” Stanfill said. “Our graduates can compete with the best schools in the country.”

Besides Locke, Team CuBIC members included Gorang Gandhi, an electrical engineering major; Robert Hay and Jeffry Lee, mechanical engineering majors; and Jeffrey Thomas and Jose Garcia, majors in computer engineering software and computer engineering hardware, respectively.